Top 10 Single-Board Computers Under $200

‘Bigger isn’t always better.’ That is certainly the case for today’s SBCs (single-board computers), which rival and sometimes surpass the power desktop PCs had from just 10 years ago. There are literally dozens of SBCs currently on the market and companies continue to release a steady stream of new boards seemingly every eight months or so. While most companies are gearing up to get their new boards out (think CES 2015), others have recently released new iterations of their popular SBCs. Listed are some of the more powerful boards that do not require deep pockets to be had.

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SolidRun’s HummingBoard-i2eX features a dual-core i.MX6 processor and a GC2000 GPU for just $99.

SolidRun, known for the CuBoxTV and CuBox-I, released their HummingBoard line of SBCs earlier this year, with their flagship board costing a mere $99. The company’s HummingBoard-i2eX boasts some impressive hardware considering it’s about the size of a cellphone recharger, including a Freescale i.MX6 dual-core processor (1.2 GHz ARM Cortex A9), Vivante GC2000 GPU and four powered USB 2.0 ports (2 are internal). Rounding out the i2eX is an mSATA2 connector, PCI-E connector and an IR port along with a microSD slot, GPIO pins and both HDMI SPDIF ports.

What about the iPac-9x25 from EMAC? This ARM based Industrial SBC is listed at $199 at quantity one and provides true data aquisition & control features not just a nice processor with your standard I/O mix.

It runs Linux, is Industrial Temp, has dual Ethernet, CAN, SPI, I2C, I2S, GPIO, PWM, A/D, SDIO, Serial, and on and on. Check it out and I think you will be impressed.

True, but I guess you never had the "pleasure" of designing an off-line switching power supply.... or even testing one! Just the special scope probes (HV differetntial) for that can run into the thousands of US$, and the voltages, currents, and stored charges all demand the utmost respect. I used to use a constant-voltage isolation transformer and a Variac for the power input....

@max: you are completely off-track here! B+ was around even before I was born, so I'm not surprised. Back in the days when "wireless network" meant radio broadcasting, even before wide distribution of electrical power, radio receiving sets used batteries. They typically required separate batteries for different functions: low voltage for tube heaters/filaments, high voltage for tube plate supplies, and medium voltage for biasing. These became in the end-user world "A," "B," and "C" batteries. The nomenclature persisted once AC home power became available, and the different voltages needed were generated with multi-tapped/multi-winding power transformers. Thus, most of us "old timers" still refer to power supply voltages using this; however, with the death of vacuum tubes for most purposes, and the advent of solid-stae voltage regulators of many types, only "B+" survives at all today (although it is often replaced by "Vcc+," a reference to another obsolescent technology, discrete transistors (where the reference is to "collector supply")).

There are so many of these <$99 boards out now, I wish someone would do a parametric search engine for them. For some of my applications RAM memory is a big constraint. Anything less than 1GB is out. Does any low cost board facilitate plugable memory (SODIMM or whatever)?